November 6, 2004 - Baby Step
Friday (yesterday) was a very stressful day. I initiated the start of my first cycle. I spent three days composing a survey that would assist me in identifying potential participants. As I was constructing this survey I realized that i need to find out more than just whether staff members wanted to participate. I needed to discover why they may or may not want to participate. I believe this would help me decide my next steps if I did not get enough positive responses from my inquiry. I spent a great deal of time on the question and the possible response options. I realized that I was asking these staff members to take time from the only afternoon that they get to complete their paperwork. It was important to me that I make the survey as comprehensive, insight, and "fun" as possible. How could I do this. Most survey have basic response options like: most of the time, some of the time, all of the time. While this is okay, I beleived that it was a bit boring and I thought that after a few questions, staff members would just begin to select the options in a daze. I wanted our staff to feel my passion and sincerety. Throughout my research, I discovered that building sense of trust is extremely important element in communities of practice. I've been pondering ways that I can build this sense of trust with our staff. I don't necessarily have a complete answer yet, but I believe that part of that sense of trust will be developed as the staff sees and experience my sincerety, enthusaism, and passion. They must feel that I am there to help, support, and guide them. One of the ways that I accomplished this was by asking these two questions:
-What is the single most important thing, related to technology, that I could do to make your job a bit easier?
-In what ways could I help you enhance, extend, or refine your current technology skills or integration strategies?
I also used as much "voice" as possible when constructing my responses. This resulted in giggles while completing the surveys and written responses that made me giggle too. I felt pretty good as I went through the surveys and read the written responses. The first steps to building relationships were taken. I received about 7 definite yes responses to being interested in the community of practice, and approximately 15 maybes. I was extremely worried that I wouldn't get much of a response, but luckily that I don't have to cross that bridge. In retrospect I probably didn't need to be this concerned, but I think that my stress over getting this started assisted me in being well prepared.
I spent some time the night before thinking about how I would present both the survey and the idea to the staff. I knew that I had to "sell" the idea, but I didn't want to overwhelm or over inform the entire staff if not all were interested. How could I hit a happy medium. I thought about the hurdles that I personally would need to overcome: building relationships among staff members that I have only seen three times since the start of my job; selling the idea of a community of practice; getting support for my action research. I decided on a three prong attack: In my presentation to the staff I clearly stated my primary challenge for the year would be making connections with a staff that is distributed geographically. I tied that to the idea that may of them feel separated and that building a communities and relationships that can span that distance would be a valuable assest to each of us both personally and professional. I wrote a brief summary of what a community of practice was in one of the survey items, and I presented. Finally, I talked about what action research is. I felt that it would be important, when presenting action research, that the staff realize that I would not be watching or observing them, instead they would be watching and observing me and that they would provide feedback and ideas to me that would assist me in doing my job better. I think this really intrigued many of the staff members.
I was very conscious throughout this entire activity that I was asking the staff to do more work, take time away from their "paperwork time", and help me with one of my projects. The surveys provided a lot of information about their interests, concerns, and problems related to technology. I think that my first cycle accomplished more than just finding possible interested parties for my AR. I believe that it was the first step in forging a bond and relationship between me and these staff members. While it started at as a baby step, I can already see that as I looked at the problems they face and their concerns, I am more committed to helping them. This baby step turned into a Giant Leap!
Link to Technology Snapshot survey